Allura (Legendary Defender)
Allura is the princess of Planet Altea, and currently one of few Alteans alive. Later on, she overtakes piloting the Blue Lion. Biography When Altea was attacked by Zarkon's Galra Empire 10,000 years ago, Allura's father, King Alfor, chose to hide the Voltron lions and Allura, rather than have Voltron formed to battle their enemy as Allura suggested. Sadly, Altea was ultimately lost as a result, with only the six residents of the Castle of Lions being known to survive the tragedy. She spent the next ten millennia in stasis, until awakened by the future Paladins of Voltron, Shiro, Keith, Lance, Pidge and Hunk. Personality Being a member of the Altean Royal Family, Allura is known for her commanding attitude towards the Paladins, her serious demeanor, and occasionally playful personality. She does, however, have a deep-seated bitterness: Zarkon is the focal point of Allura's rage and suffering because of his betrayal of her and her family that resulted in the murder of her father, her entire race, and the destruction of her home planet. Allura's raw hatred of Zarkon is unnerving to behold for those more familiar with her more compassionate side, and her bloody history with the Galra has fostered in her a severe hatred and distrust of their race. This comes to the forefront upon learning of Keith's revelation that he is part Galra. She becomes severely conflicted and begins coldly shunning him. However, in due time, Allura realizes that Keith has more than proven his good heart and rightful place on the team, which Allura considers to be her new-found family, and she reaffirms her trust in him by apologizing for her misjudgment. Allura is a very caring and altruistic individual who wants to do right by the people of the galaxy and is incredibly committed to her diplomatic and military duties as the daughter of the king, and appears to define her mission by the same standards and care that her father did. Allura greatly admires her father and misses him, and tries very hard to take up the mantle of leadership in his stead. She maintained a deferential attitude towards her father's hologram until its destruction, despite the mantle of leadership having passed to her. Allura possesses an incredible force of will, able to sacrifice her father's artificial intelligence, and with it her last connection to the king and parent she so deeply admired and loved. This shows just how much she is willing to give up in order to complete her mission, able to mutilate her own emotions in the interests of peace and defeating her enemies. Allura has a close relationship with the mice who shared her cryo-pod with her, and they now share an empathic connection, with them having their intelligence augmented by Allura's memories and mind. The Altean Princess is also close to her guardian and assistant, Coran, who is devoutly protective of her, both as her friend and as the closest thing she has left to family. Allura initially looked down upon her human liberators, but in due time came to accept them despite many of their glaring flaws and quirks. Shiro seems to be her second-in-command, as she trusts his natural leadership and unusual wisdom, and therefore allows him a great degree of autonomy as the leader of the Paladins in the field. As for the rest of the Paladins, she works well with Keith in their field work together, often correcting him when he acts as a warrior when she needs him to be a diplomat, however when revealed he was partially Galra and she lost trust, completely justified as they destroyed her planet and killed her family, although she did learn that not every race is entirely good/evil, via the Blade of Marmora and Haggar. Lance seems to be the object of her embarrassment due to his flirtatious nature and unwanted advances towards her, but still cares for him as a friend and comrade all the same and was deeply concerned for his safety after Haxus's attack on the castle. Despite their contentious relationship, Lance greatly respects Allura, and despite feeling hurt at losing the Blue Lion and transitioning to Red, he acknowledged that if he was going to lose Blue to anyone, he was glad it was Allura, revealing how deep his admiration of her goes. In response, Allura promised to take good care of Blue as she gave her blessing to Lance in becoming the Red Lion's new Paladin. Allura initially was doubtful when the mice told her of Pidge's true identity, and upon this discovery she attempted to bond with the Green Paladin as the only females on the team, something that Pidge reacted to in her typically socially awkward fashion. Allura respects Hunk for his obvious kindness despite his absurd and prodigious physical strength, finding him to be a kindred spirit; someone who does not enjoy battle, but sacrifices his own comforts and needs to support his friends. Allura originally had a difficult time piloting the Blue Lion due to her tending to bounce between pleading and demanding with it. When she finally achieved a balancing point, Blue responded enthusiastically to her, allowing her access to powers that Lance took substantially longer than her to unlock, marking Allura as a prodigy pilot. Abilities Being an Altean of royal blood, she is incredibly well trained in combat, calling the gladiator simulator that the Paladins first experienced as being fit for an Altean child. Allura's empathetic and kind nature extends to her abilities, allowing her to tap into her own life force and use it to communicate with and heal the Balmera, something that only more experienced Alteans could do. Her ability to absorb and channel quintessence is so powerful that she survived using the Castle Ship to amplify her power to restore life to the Balmera, something that Coran was doubtful of her surviving. This shows that Allura is significantly stronger than she initially appeared to be. She is also a skilled mimic, using her natural, but somewhat limited shapeshifting abilities to impersonate a Galra soldier by changing her normally nut-brown skin to violet in order to fool the guards on one of Zarkon's ships. She exhibited quite prodigious strength when impersonating a Galra soldier, enough to surprise Shiro, the tallest and arguably the strongest of the Voltron Paladins. Like her fellow Altean, Haggar, Allura is gifted with latent abilities to manipulate not only quintessence, but also magical energy. During her duel with Haggar on board Zarkon's command ship Allura's magical abilities were unlocked by the repeated blasts of mystical energy she endured, effectively jump starting them like an electrical current, allowing her to duel Haggar to a standstill. Unlike Haggar's magic, Allura's magic manifests in a form that resembles pink lightning. Despite her relative inexperience with her magic, Allura is clearly incredibly powerful, as her raw might alone was enough to frighten and match the elder Altean sorceress. Allura's first hint of magical power was her ability to see through Haggar's illusions, being able to direct which one of her for Hunk to fire his cannon at. Allura initially struggled with piloting Blue, but with time managed to reveal herself to be a gifted Pilot. Notes * Allura's exact age is unknown. She has been described "as young as everyone else" and "acting like any teenager would".Joaquim Dos Santos, Wonder-Con 2017 Due to Coran's age being at least 600 years old,Coran's age proving the long lifespan of Alteans, it is not known if Allura is truly 19 years old or younger, or simply the Altean equivalent of a human teenager. ** Allura claims she has flown the Castleship for half of her life. If she is 19 or younger, then she would have flown the Castleship at about 9 years old. **Although she has existed for at least ten thousand years, Allura has not aged mentally nor physically because she had been in a stasis sleep and did not consciously experience that span of time. References Gallery :Main Gallery: Allura Category:Voltron: Legendary Defender characters Category:Characters Category:Altean Category:Paladins